Need help reigning in my roommate's downloading

Its gotten to the point were its so slow that I can't do much of anything on the internet. I keep telling him that the connection is not his exclusive province and that me and my other roommate need to use it too, but my dismal latency remains (3k ms). I could use help in configuring my router to apportion the connection so that we all get an equal share and he does not (or block the ports that e donkey operates on :twisted: ) hog the whole damn cable connection. I am using a Network Everywhere NR041 router. When I access the options through the 192.168.1.1 address the interface says and looks like linksys stuff. I tried to go to linksys.com to see the user guide of a similar product, but they are down right now. I would greatly appreciate any help anyone here could provide.

That said, I looked over the information on the Network Everywhere website concerning your router, and bandwidth throttling is not a supported option. Bandwith throttling is an advanced network operation; I would have been surprised if the feature was offered.

In order to get what you seek, you are going to need to invest in a commercial router, or dabble with Linux or Windows SERVER products to find options on partioning the bandwidth.

I would talk to your roomate again, and if that doesn't work so well, then prove to him that he is hogging the line with his connection, and have him pay the lion's share of the connection.

I don't think the problem is that his roommate doesn't agree he is hogging it. I think the problem is that his roommate simply likes to download lots of files all the time, and it isn't his roommate's fault that the router isn't smart enough to allocate better. I think his roommate would be perfectly happy with something in place to allocate less bandwidth to him, as long as he could continue downloading the files he wants to.

eDonkey (and every other file sharing application worth using for that matter) has a configuration page that allows for setting the max upload and download bandwidth that the program can use. I'd recommend talking with him and deciding on a maximum amount that his program is allowed to use and then having him set those values in the program. As punishment for violating the negotiated speeds, remove him from the network for a day.

I'm the network controller in my apartment of four people. It helps to know what your connection is capable of and what is fair. If you are on a DSL connection, your roommate definately needs to limit the upload transfer (A DSL connection's and some cable connection's download capability suffers terribly when the upload portion is overburdened, which happens with filesharing. This is likely to be your main issue). While making sure that no other system is using the network (disconnecting them is recommended), run a line speed test a few times. Record the lowest indicated upload and download speeds. These speeds indicate what you can expect out of your connection consistently. Use these numbers to come to a conclusion on what maximum settings your roommate can run.

With filesharing in my apartment, I have an 80% rule. Each person gets a portion of the connection speed, and the filesharing on each system should not exceed 80% of their share. I understand that you have three roommates, so I will show an example of what the maximum bandwidth allocations could be for each person. Let's assume that you found out that your download speed is 2000kbps and your upload speed is 300kbps. Divide those numbers by three and apply the 80% rule. Each person should not allow their filesharing program to exceed a usage of 500kbps (62.5kBps) of download speed and 80kbps (10kBps) of upload speed. Notice that I rounded down; never round up with these speeds, always down. After locking his eDonkey client down to these speeds, you should notice a great improvement on the connection.

If your speeds are lower than what I put in the example, you may want to lower the percentage to 70% or even lower. Experimentation will show what numbers work well. 80% works well and makes us all satisfied with our setup, so that's what we use.

You will want to run the speed test periodically (remember to make sure that there aren't any other systems using the network at the time) to make sure that you know what your connection is capable of.

kc0arf is correct though. This is more of a social engineering problem rather than network engineering problem. Either your misbehaving roommate shapes up, or you disconnect him and tell him that he's on his own for his internet connection.

You could always "social engineer" the card right out of his computer. You know during those critical times that you and your roommates need to use the Net.

You might want to consider this since we're going to attempt to con the poor soul. Try setting him a time that he can use the net for downloading. Like when you guys are going to need it have him stop downloading. You guys probably all use it at close to the same time. So ask him to download like During the day when nobody is there. Set them and leave them - they should be done when yall are ready. If not have him pause them.

Or have him set them and leave them at night, the early AM when you won't be on.

BUT
If all else fails tell him he's has to pay the entire bill because he is the only one that truly gets to use it :P

While I agree with Christian, you shouldn't solve social issues with technology, There are ways this can be done. I'm not sure if your router will do it, but both Linux and NetBSD (I'm sure others do, too) have something called QoS (Quality of Service). You can apply a different "priority" to each type of traffic using those tools. If you're really serious about this, that's one way to go.

...Of course, a "social" approach would be to ask your roommates "Why am I paying an equal share of this bill if I'm not doing equal downloading?" If all else fails, get your own 'Net connection, like DSL if they have Cable, or vice-versa. They have no right accessing something that they're not paying for, and you shouldn't be stuck paying equally if they both ate steak dinners, and you just had soup.

The problem isnt solved purely by restricting bandwidth allocation on the file sharing sites. I am experiencing a similar problem with the client machine on my network. This is frequently used to share files on bear share and has msn running with occasional file sharing. There is also normal web access on this machine and occasional downloading from other internet sites.

Some of these uses do not have a bandwidth restriction facility. This means that on occassion my [highly important] gaming is interupted.

i bought a router to try and resolve the ICS problems, but found the same problems exists.

I could not find a bandwidth allocation facility on my router (Mentor).

I don't think the problem is that his roommate doesn't agree he is hogging it. I think the problem is that his roommate simply likes to download lots of files all the time, and it isn't his roommate's fault that the router isn't smart enough to allocate better. I think his roommate would be perfectly happy with something in place to allocate less bandwidth to him, as long as he could continue downloading the files he wants to.

Or you could always by a low end hardware firewall. Nearly all have the ability to block whatever ports you would like blocked. I came across a cheap(er) Netgear on CDW's site for around $60. You could probably find one cheaper if you looked hard enough.

Port blocking isn't going to do it-- that will cut it off entirely, and alienate your fellow users. That's why I suggested a QoS monitoring solution to either give your packets a higher priority, or give the other people's packets a lower priority.

But again, that's not going to solve anything. All you're going to do is irritate folks. I still contend the best solution is to get your own internet connection that cannot or will not be shared by the others.

Port blocking isn't going to do it-- that will cut it off entirely, and alienate your fellow users. That's why I suggested a QoS monitoring solution to either give your packets a higher priority, or give the other people's packets a lower priority.

But again, that's not going to solve anything. All you're going to do is irritate folks. I still contend the best solution is to get your own internet connection that cannot or will not be shared by the others.

This looks like the sort of thing i need!!!! am trying a download monitor "Bandwidth Monitor Pro" which came recomended, but doesnt change much. This qos is what i need to give my game priority over downloads. any idea where we can find it?

This looks like the sort of thing i need!!!! am trying a download monitor "Bandwidth Monitor Pro" which came recomended, but doesnt change much. This qos is what i need to give my game priority over downloads. any idea where we can find it?

cheers

QoS is something you'd have to use Linux or a BSD for. Basically, you replace your router with a PC that has 2 NICs in it. One end connects to the LAN, and the other one connects to the Internet. You configure this machine to route packets much like your previous router.

In a BSD, you could use ALTQ, which isn't all that difficult. I'm at a loss to find a good howto on that tool, but if you decided to go that route, the manual (man)pages that are included with the BSD flavor you choose should guide you right through.

Doing this takes a litle bit of know-how, but once it's set up, you don't have to touch it anymore, unless it's to tweak some bandwidth, or to temporarily disable it. Once it's all set up, it should act just like your old router, but it will have a capability to do QoS filtering.

IPcop has a nice installation and administration set up (works like most routers' web based interfaces), and it has rudimentary QoS features. If you know what ports are being used, you can set them as "LOW" priority ports through there.